


Aching to Fall Flat on My Face

by indevan



Series: Rock Band AU [15]
Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Accidental Drug Use, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Drinking, Drug Use, F/M, Flashbacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-11 00:57:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12311478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indevan/pseuds/indevan
Summary: He feels old, all of a sudden, much older than a guy who’s just hitting his mid-twenties.  Maybe he’s having some sort of quarter life crisis





	Aching to Fall Flat on My Face

**Author's Note:**

> some...of the things described in this fic might be slightly...autobiographical

It’s becoming more and more frequent for the two of them to spend a whole day doing press.  Appearances on shows, podcasts, interviews with music magazines and blogs--King Kai says it’s important to get their faces out there and keep people talking about them.  Kakarrot’s mouth feels lodged with cotton and his throat is sandpaper raw.

“Why is it just us?” he whines, hating how scratchy his voice sounds.

“You heard him: we’re the face of the band.” Vegeta sounds just as worn out as he does, his usual raspy voice even rougher than normal.

They sit in the cab King Kai called for them, idling in traffic.  It’s weird, having transportation.  Before, when his car was broken down (which was more often than not) Kakarrot walked or took the bus.

“This is still so weird,” he says with a sigh. “Like, I never thought we’d get famous.”

He gets a grunt in response and he isn’t sure if it’s because Vegeta’s throat hurts, too, or if he really doesn’t want to talk to him.

“It feels so much...faker now.  Like we aren’t us…”

There’s a pause and then, “Yeah.”

Traffic inches forward and Kakarrot looks out the smudged, streaked window at the lights of the city.  Before, everything seemed so full of possibility and now it’s...work.  It’s expectations and pressure and people hounding him for an autograph when he’s trying to place his order at McDonalds.

“We haven’t done any wild shit in so long,” he continues. “Like, remember the night we made our own 4loko?”

“No.” A smirk tugs on the corner of Vegeta’s lips. “Which I guess was the point.”

Kakarrot laughs.

“True.” He lets it peter off into a sigh. “I dunno...I don’t feel like me right now.  Maybe ‘cause I had to spend the last ten hours saying the same stuff over and over and over and over and--”

“Kakarrot.”

“Hold on.  And over and over and over and--ow!”

He rubs his arm where Vegeta punched him and looks back out the window.  He feels old, all of a sudden, much older than a guy who’s just hitting his mid-twenties.  Maybe he’s having some sort of quarter life crisis.  It isn’t Chi-Chi and the boys or his impending wedding--it’s the band thing.  It’s realizing that this is his life, his job now.

“Hey, y’think the others are back at the apartment?”

Kakarrot had only lived there briefly until he and Chi-Chi got their own place shortly before Gohan was born.  Still, he spent so much time there…before...

“Probably.  Why?  You wanna just show up?”

“You still have your key, don’t you?” Kakarrot sighs and flops back against the seat. “I just wanna...do something.  I’m all wound up.”

Vegeta rolls his eyes but he leans forward and tells the cab driver to change their destination.  Unfortunately, no one’s in the apartment when they get there.

“That’s rude,” Kakarrot says.

“We didn’t tell them we were coming,” Vegeta reminds him. “But let’s steal their alcohol anyway.”

He nods.  There’s a pan of brownies covered in plastic wrap on their chipped, formica counter and Kakarrot lifts the edge to peel it back.  The smell of chocolate fills the air and his mouth waters.  Somehow, he’d managed to forget that they hadn’t been able to eat all day.  Without thinking, he grabs two and jams them in his mouth at the same time.  He sees that Vegeta has the same idea as he crams one whole into his mouth.  Kakarrot tastes it under the chocolate immediately.  He swallows a great mouthful and widens his eyes.  Vegeta’s mouth twists and he knows that he noticed it, too.  It _was_ fairly suspicious why a house where no one enjoys baking had a mostly full pan of brownies just sitting out on the counter.

“These are edibles,” he says, stating the obvious.

“Yes they are.”

“And Turles manages to shove, like, almost three grams in each of these.”

“He sure does.”

Kakarrot puts a hand over his stomach. “And I just ate two of them.”

\--

It’s hot and wet, the kind of heat that wraps around your limbs and strangles you.  Kakarrot’s jaw aches from his chewing gum--gum he’s been chewing so long that it’s gone bitter in his mouth.  Next to him, Vegeta’s smoking a cigarette and sticking his thumb out in the road.  It’s dark on this curve of the road, with very little streetlights.  Hitchhiking’s dumb but there’s not much else for them to do.  Neither of them have their licenses and it’s hard finding Raditz and Turles around these days.  When they’re together and all is good, they rarely come up for air.

Headlights slice through the heat and darkness and a car comes to a stop in front of them.  A man rolls down the window and he looks like a respectable guy in a business suit.  The sight of him makes Kakarrot’s skin crawl but he gets in the back seat anyway.

“Know where the Monkey’s Paw is?” Vegeta asks as he settles into the passenger seat, exhaling smoke in the man’s face.

“Yeah.  I’ll get you boys there no problem.”

He seems normal but Kakarrot notices him looking at them both, taking bites out of them with his eyes.

“Are you two old enough to drink?” he asks.

“Wanna see our IDs?” Vegeta sneers.

He always has no issue talking back to people older than him or authority.  Kakarrot tends to blunder into it, accidentally saying something that pisses off the teacher and lands him in detention.

“Mind if I smoke?” he asks, waving his already lit cigarette.

The man pulls out his ashtray and grins.  Kakarrot curls his lip.  He wonders if he could punch him if he tries anything without sending them flying off the road.  The car stops a block from the bar, pulling over to a parking space behind a line of cars.

“Thanks,” Kakarrot says.

He undoes his seatbelt and starts for the door.  The man looks at them both, wounded and angry.

“Where’s my payment?  I drove you boys here, didn’t I?”

“What do you want?” Vegeta asks.

The man pinches his cheeks together with one hand and says, “Your lips are pretty thick, aren’t they?  Wonder what they’re good for?”

Kakarrot tenses, ready to fight, but Vegeta has already ground his cigarette out in the guy’s free hand.  When he lets go, Kakarrot knows that it’s their cue to bolt.  They dash down the sidewalk, already cracking up.

“What a fuck!” Vegeta crows. “Thinking I was going to suck him off for driving a measly ten miles.”

“I was ready to punch him,” Kakarrot says, laughing now that the danger’s passed.  He glances back and, “Shit, he’s coming.”

It doesn’t matter now, he thinks, because they’re at the bar and Borgos is the bouncer tonight.  All they have to do is point him out.  When the guy’s black and blue and shuffling off to lick his wounds, Borgos shakes his head.

“You better be careful.  Both of you.” He regards Kakarrot for a moment and shakes his head. “God, you’re so much like your goddamn father.  Feels like yesterday I was doing this same shit for him and Toma.”

“Don’t have to be careful,” Kakarrot says, ignoring the second half of what he said. “We’re immortal!”

\--

“I’m dying!” Kakarrot whines.

He’s face down on the couch and everything is happening at once.  His muscles are lead and his head is stuffed with cotton and this is worse than the time he went completely catatonic after snorting coke laced with strychnine.

“Shut...up.”

Vegeta’s at least gotten himself in a seated position, slumped against the couch with his chin to his chest.

“This is a body high,” Kakarrot continues, “the worrrrrrst.”

His brain is muddled and everything is simultaneously happening at once and not happening at all.  He manages to lift his hand and wiggles his fingers in front of his face but it feels like a herculean effort.

“We need someone to get us.”

Talking is weird, too, like his mouth is detached.  He puts his hand to it to make sure it’s still there and accidentally bites his fingers.  He sees teeth marks but he doesn’t feel any pain.

“I’m trying.”

He turns his head to see Vegeta trying to text someone--presumably Bulma.

“The fucking words won’t stop leaving the screen,” he says, gritting his teeth.

Kakarrot wonders how he can even function but, then, he only had one brownie whereas he had wolfed down two without even thinking of the possibility that they were edibles.

A small part of him that isn’t preoccupied with his body parts floating off into space, though, is giddy.  This is what he missed, isn’t it?

\--

“So what’s the pill called again?”

Kakarrot sits backwards on his kitchen chair, resting his chin on his folded arms.

“Berocca,” Vegeta replies. “It’ll dissolve right way.”

The two glasses that sit in front of them look innocuous.  Kool-Aid mix, vodka, and malt liquor.  Nothing too intense until he watches Vegeta drop a pill in each one.

“Think this’ll really remake it?” he asks.

“Only one way to find out.”

They clink glasses and the first thing Kakarrot notices about the taste is that it’s awful.  He remembers bugging Turles a year or so ago to buy them cans of 4loko because they were teenagers with bad taste.  Now Kakarrot is a young adult (and father) with bad taste but wow this still tastes like radioactive death.  He doesn’t think he’ll be able to take another sip if he stops so he, somehow, manages to chug the entire thing in one go.

He slams the glass down on the counter and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.  Disgusted, he sticks his now bright red tongue out.

“That’s so nasty.”

Vegeta nods and puts down his own empty glass.  Kakarrot looks at the two glasses and wonders if they didn’t make a mistake putting the concoction in glasses so large.  He stands up and the entire world shifts.  Surprised by how quickly he’s affected, he careens to the side and catches himself on the table.

The rest of the night feels like a series of snapshots.  He can see what’s happening but it’s like a movie montage happening to someone else.  He remembers his brother coming to get them before Chi-Chi comes home from her dad’s with Gohan and they see him like this.  He remembers driving side by side in Turles’s van and Vegeta screaming about _Footloose_ before throwing his seatbelt off and standing between the two cars as they drove down the road.  Raditz screaming, “This night is going to end with me in jail and you two in the morgue!”

Then he remembers a cool breeze on his suddenly naked body and the syruppy yellow words “Waffle House” illuminating him while he howls at the full moon in between singing “GONNA FLY NOOOOW!”  After that, all he remembers is waking up at the kitchen table with a very angry Chi-Chi turning the garbage disposal on to spite him because he came home at four in the morning, crashed into a chair, and woke Gohan up.  And he apparently tried to reheat leftovers and ended up passing out in them--if the congealed sauce in his hair was any indication.

“Have you learned your lesson?” she asks and the attitude in her voice cuts through his hangover headache.

He stares at her and blearily blinks his eyes--because when did the kitchen light gets so bright?--and says, “Probably not.”

\--

He isn’t sure how much time passes before the apartment door opens and he hears Bulma’s voice shout to them.

“What even was that text?” she asks. “How high are you two?”

Kakarrot struggles to sit up and he feels someone’s hands against his back, pushing him up into a seated position.

“Yeah,” he says honestly.

“Thought they were just brownies,” Vegeta says and yawns massively.

Bulma puts her hands on her hips and shakes her head. “Sure you did.  You got ‘im?”

“Yeah.”

Chi-Chi?  Oh, shit.  She’s gonna be _mad._  Or she already is.  He turns his head and she’s looking--exasperated, maybe?  His vision is a little fuzzy, blurred, but not as bad as when he lost an entire day to edibles because he kept forgetting he would eat half a cookie and then eat another half a few hours later.

“Body high,” he croaks out.

Chi-Chi’s hands are cool against his forehead.

“You say that like I know what it means,” she says and replaces her fingers with her lips to place a kiss at his temple.

“You’re not mad?”

His brain is still muddled and it adds to his confusion.

“In the grand scheme of things you’ve done, accidentally eating edibles barely registers,” she tells him.

“Aw, babe.  I love you.”

He nuzzles into her and must put too much weight on her because Chi-Chi staggers backwards.  He takes this opportunity to look up to see Bulma similarly struggling.

“Why are you only cuddly when you’re high?” she asks irritably. “Stop nuzzling me!”

“No.  Soft.  Smell nice.”

Vegeta’s alternating between rubbing against her and peppering her neck with little kisses.

“God, I’m so weak when you’re being cute.” She rolls her eyes and rubs his back with one hand before kissing him back. “Let’s go home, big guy.  Can you walk?”

He gets to his feet and leans against her.  Kakarrot looks at Chi-Chi who shakes her head.

“I cannot support your weight.  Take my hands.”

She holds them out and, somehow, manages to haul him to his feet.

\--

“I’M A BAAAAAD BOY ‘CAUSE I DON’T EVEN MISS HER!  I’M BAAAAD BOY FOR BREAKIN’ HER HEAAARRRRRT!”

Kakarrot holds Vegeta by the loops of his jeans, trying to keep him in the window.  He’s still in the “obnoxiously singing” stage of being drunk so he isn’t too far gone yet.  He’s a fair bit wasted himself but has enough of his faculties to keep his best friend inside the apartment building.  He’s hanging half out the window, serenading the street below.

“‘CAUSE I’M FREEEEE!  FREE FALLIN’  Fallin’ now I’m--free fallin’!”

“This a regular thing?”

Nappa says.  He’s recently joined their newly formed band because he’s decent on keyboards but mostly because he has really nice amps.  He’s worked as a session musician and roadie and has been around the block enough times to make the rest of them suitably impressed.

“Unfortunately.” Raditz is drunk, too, and unsteady on his feet.

“We’re super mature for our ages, though, honest.” Turles widens his eyes in innocence but then he collapses into a peal of giggles and flops backwards, nearly landing on Broly.

“I bet you are.” Nappa shakes his head. “Shit, I’m too old for this.”

Raditz looks at him very seriously and says, “You’re only a couple years younger than my parents.”

“Thanks for that, kid.  Means a lot.”

“ALL THE VAMPIIIIRES WALKIN’ THROUGH THE VALLEYYY!  MOVE WEST DOWN VENTURA BOULEVARD!”

Kakarrot tugs again and this time manages to get Vegeta back inside the apartment except he tumbles backwards and lands on top of him.  A flash of nostalgia shoots through his drunk brain: graduation party, greenhouse--but he pushes it back.

“Don’t wreck your voice,” Nappa tells him. “That’s what’s gonna make you famous.”

Vegeta scrambles to his feet to give him the finger. “Fuck you.”

Nappa cocks his brow and takes a drink from his own bottle of beer.

“He always react this way to compliments?”

Raditz nods.

“More often than not, yeah.”

\--

It’s dark and someone is nudging Kakarrot awake.  He still feels tired and foggy but he’s regained control of his body again and the worst of it has passed.  Someone, Chi-Chi probably, got him into bed and he has no idea of what time it is or even what day.  He doesn’t think he was _that_ far gone but the gloominess of his bedroom is far too disorienting.

Chi-Chi’s asleep next to him so it isn’t her who nudged him awake.  He glances over the side of the bed to see Gohan peering up at him.  He’s holding his purple stuffed dragon as well as Goten in both of his arms.

“How did you get him out of his crib?” he asks, stifling a yawn.

“Stood on my bathroom stool,” he says proudly. “Are you okay, daddy?”

Kakarrot nods and gives him a thumbs up.

“I’m good.”

“Were you high again?” he asks.

Goten babbles in possible agreement.

“GoGo, how do you know that word?”

“I hear mommy say it sometimes.” He makes a face and adopts a voice that sort of sounds like Chi-Chi. “‘Kakarrot’s high again.’  Is that something bad?”

He honestly isn’t sure how to answer that.

“Uh.  It can be,” he says. “This time it was.”

Gohan nods as if he understands. “Can we get in bed with you?”

“Sure thing, little dude.”

He smiles at the nickname and passes Goten over so he can clamor up onto the bed.  That’s enough to wake Chi-Chi who sits up.

“What’s going on--oh!  Boys!”

She smiles and ruffles Gohan’s hair.

“And Icarus!” he says, lifting his stuffed toy.

“And Icarus,” she agrees.

“Daddy says he’s better,” he reports.

Chi-Chi looks at him and a smile comes on her face. “I’m glad--and GoGo, let this be a lesson for you as well as daddy.  Don’t eat mysterious food left out on the counter.”

He looks confused as if he doesn’t understand what she means but he grins anyway.

“Okay, mommy!”

Gohan snuggles between them and Kakarrot’s able to forget about his ill-spent youth and his potential quarter-life crisis.  He adjusts Goten in his arms and the infant cuddles around him, resting his head on his shoulder and gurgling contentedly.  Their supposed fame, the weirdness he felt earlier--none it matters because this is exactly where he wants to be.  Because of or in spite of everything he’s done.

**Author's Note:**

> vertigoats.tumblr.com


End file.
